Page 45 of Outlier

I bit my lip, thinking now that I shouldn’t have accepted Pete’s invite. And Idefinitelyshouldn’t have gone into hedgehog hyperfocus mode when I got there.

Men like Mike probably don’t enjoy being ignored.

“I’m really so?—”

“I’m going to kiss you now, okay?” Mike said in that growly, bossy tone I was starting to really appreciate.

I nodded, and he reached forward with both hands, cupping my face over the central console and sealing his mouth over mine. One of my hands went into his thick, glorious hair whilst the other gripped the front of his shirt. When he broke the kiss, we were both breathing heavily as he rested his forehead against mine.

“So,” I whispered. “You don’t mind about the hedgehogs?”

“No, baby,” he said in a soft voice that was just a little fierce at the same time. “I don’t mind about the hedgehogs. I love that I got to share that with you.”

He set me back into my seat and pulled my seatbelt over me like I was a child, which was unusual, since I wasn’t actually a child, but seeing as I got to smell him again and have him in my space for longer, I wasn’t going to object.

Before we pulled away, Mike smiled at the windshield and said, again in that soft but fierce tone, “I reallyreallylike you, Victoria Harding.”

“Um… okay,” I said. “I mean, I really like you too. But you already know that.”

So, it seemed my general weirdness was not going to put Mike off, which was good. I didn’t want to put Mike off. But then he drove me back to Buckingham Manor. When we stopped outside, I turned to him and frowned.

“Why aren’t we going back to the cabin?” I asked.

Mike sighed. “Vicky, love, if I take you back to my cabin now, after this evening, I’m definitely going to fuck you.”

“Well, that’s kind of the point of all this.”

He shook his head and chuckled. “Jesus Christ, I’m not going to survive you. Vicky, I’m not going to take you home and fuck you after just one date.”

I made another completely unlike me harrumph noise to express my dissatisfaction with this plan.

Before spending time with Mike I don’t think I’d ever made such a ridiculous noise before in my life.

“Okay, how many dates?”

Mike laughed again, but it was pained this time. “I’m not going to give you a countdown to us fucking.”

I bit my lip. “But I’m really good with timelines, and having exact parameters and expectations.”

He chuckled again and rubbed his hand down his face before he jumped out of the driver’s seat, stalked around the car bonnet and opened my door. He did the seatbelt thing again and then physically lifted me out of the car until I was in his arms, all the while, asking those little checks to make sure I was happy with any touch.

I was happy to be in his arms, but I still stared up at him with a grumpy expression as I did not want to get out of the car. I wanted to go back to his cabin.

“I’m not giving you a number.”

“Fine,” I said as I burrowed my face into his chest and inhaled deeply. “But I have to go back to London tomorrow.”

So we left it without a timeline until sex, which made me extremely unhappy.

Chapter 17

I’m supposed to go straight to him and kiss him

Vicky

Lottie squeezedmy wrist under the table again, but I couldn’t drag my gaze from beyond the conference room, because he wasright there.

Felix cleared his throat.